The eye injury suffered by Chris Pronger last night was one of the scariest things I have ever seen. Even veteran hockey people in the pressbox -- who have seen and/or suffered some grisly injuries in their time -- were horrified by the thought of any worst-case scenario.
Thank heavens, the early prognosis is about as good as can be expected under the circumstances. Pronger's vision came back and the early hope is that he could rejoin the team in 2-3 weeks. However, more will be known in a few days. Pronger, who had some blood on the outer part of his right eye, is on bed rest for several days.
Chris Pronger is the most irreplaceable player on the Flyers. Genuine franchise defensemen are the scarcest commodity in the sport, and whenever Pronger is out of the lineup -- even when the team wins -- there is a trickle-down effect in which the team is forced to give Kimmo Timonen too many "hard" minutes and the third-paring defensemen risk being exposed.
Given the Flyers' current cap situation, their most realistic option at this point is to try to get by with Matt Walker and Andreas Lilja both in the lineup until Pronger returns. To be honest, that's not a real comforting proposition but the bottom line is that no matter what the Flyers do, players like Timonen, Matt Carle, Braydon Coburn and especially Andrej Meszaros (whose early season play has been spotty) need to play their A games on a regular basis and the goaltending will have to be very good.
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As for last night's game itself, Flyers fans had to like the way the team responded after trailing 1-0 and losing Pronger.
All three members of the Claude Giroux line -- Giroux (2 assists), Jaromir Jagr (2 goals on breakaways, 1 assist), Scott Hartnell (2 goals, 1 assist) -- were nothing short dominant last night in accounting for all four goals the Flyers scored. In fact, Jagr nearly had a four-goal night, as he was robbed by Jonas Gustavsson on a nasty deflection in the first period and stoned by a pad save on the second of his three breakaway chances.
The Danny Briere line did not register a goal, although Briere assisted on Hartnell's dirty-but-good power play tally in the second period. Nevertheless, you can see chemistry emerging between Briere and Wayne Simmonds, while rookie Brayden Schenn seems to be a better fit than Jakub Voracek for that line.
Jody Shelley, playing his first game of the season, may have had his strongest hockey game as a Flyer. He was strong along the walls and created some havoc around the net. This is the sort of player -- apart from fighting -- that Philadelphia hoped it was getting when they signed him to a free agent contract last summer at a $1.1 million cap hit.
Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky also played a strong game. There is no "goaltending controversy" here. Bobrovsky earned this start with his play in Ottawa and the preseason. He needs minutes to stay sharp, too. The Leafs had to go with their own backup goalie as a result of the neck injury James Reimer sustained the other night. Meanwhile, Ilya Bryzgalov has allowed 9 goals (2 of which can pinned on him) in his last 2 starts and the team is in a stretch of 3 games in 4 nights and 4 games in 6 nights. Splitting the work makes sense right now, but there is no doubting which goalie is the number one guy here.
Timonen, who has been excellent in seven of the eight games played to date, played tremendous hockey in the absence of Pronger. He logged 26:35 of ice time, recorded a pair of asssists, and blocked three shots. Coburn (26:11, 3 hits, 1 takeaway, 1 block) had a strong bounce back from the puck-exchange debacle against the Blues.
In terms of the areas where the Flyers need to get better, I think the Flyers need to reconfigure their third line. Matt Read looks good at wing but not at center. James van Riemsdyk's play picked up as the game moved along, but needs to be a lot more active in going to the net and taking care of business down low when he doesn't have the puck on his stick. Jakub Voracek had one excellent shift and a lot of so-so ones among the 19 he skated last night.
Andrej Meszaros came away from last night with an impressive-looking stat line (24:28 played, +1, 5 hits, 0 giveaways/1 takeaway). Observationally, however, it seemed like he caught in no man's land a few times again last night. On the flip side, Matt Carle had an ugly stat line (23:18 played, -2, 4 missed/blocked shot attempts, 3 giveaways) but I thought he really didn't play all that badly.
The Flyers have now been scored on first in each of the last two games. That's a trend they want to nip in the bud. Also, the club got significantly outplayed early in the second period, but Bobrovsky held the game at 1-1 and then the Giroux line helped turn the momentum back in Philly's favor.
The Flyers are back in action tomorrow night in Montreal, at home the next night against Winnipeg and then on Saturday when the Carolina Hurricanes pay their first of two visits this season.
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